Making A Match

On Trade Mission To Israel, Connecticut Companies Expanded Relationships And Wooed New Partners

July 14, 1997|By MAXINE BERNSTEIN

Anyone who has given business presentations to company executives or prospective clients is familiar with the hassle of lugging posterboards, slide projectors or other visuals from one meeting to another.

Barry Blau, president of a Connecticut-based direct marketing company looking for innovative ways to ease such activities for his clients, may have stumbled upon a solution.

The solution lies with an Israeli business called Net Scene, which has developed a technology that can place a full presentation, complete with written material, graphics, background music and vocal narration, on a World Wide Web site on the Internet.

``We're looking for anything that might accelerate or make our programs more effective,'' Blau said, speaking to the Israeli businessman as he witnessed a demonstration of the technology during a recent visit to Tel Aviv.

``Are you planning on coming to the States anytime soon?''

Blau's company, Blau Marketing Technology of Wilton, is now considering a business venture with Israel's Net Scene, a result of a meeting in June across a coffee-size table in a downtown Tel Aviv office building.

The connection was one of many forged between Israeli and Connecticut companies within the past month, each seeking broader business opportunities.

A five-day Connecticut trade mission to Israel, led by the governor, gave state business representatives added cachet as they sought to market their products or find investors in what many have dubbed the ``Silicon Valley of the Middle East.''

As Connecticut's economy eases away from a heavy reliance on the defense and insurance industries to a more diverse economic base, these connections are vital, economists say.

``From an economic point of view, borders don't make much difference anymore. It used to be, a decade and a half ago, this country, with 220 million people, was a big enough market for most manufacturers and service industries. But with the global economy, you have competition from abroad,'' said Kenneth Decko, president of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association.

``We have to compete in their territory, too. To stand still, and just sell our products around here, it will be impossible to stay competitive.''

Charles Tarzian, Blau's technical adviser, recognized that.

``We are a worldwide provider, so we need international partners, and the trade mission was a great way to have that set up for us,'' Tarzian said. ``It exposed us to immense possibilities.''

Networking in a foreign land meant holding informal meetings on factory floors, in university halls, on kibbutz property, across dinner tables, in hotel lobbies and in meeting rooms.

Many of the business matchmaking sessions were coordinated in advance by the Connecticut-Israel Exchange Commission, a quasi- governmental agency based in Bridgeport that was set up in 1988 to support such business connections, and the American-Israel Chamber of Commerce based in Israel.

Some Connecticut companies were hoping to set up joint ventures with Israeli companies. Others went to expand existing ones, or simply to explore investment opportunities.

The success of the mission will rely on how effective the Connecticut companies are in following up on the contacts they made.

Many of those who returned from Israel are compiling reports on their meetings for their bosses and shareholders, as well as sending back specific company data, price lists or sales information that their Israeli contacts requested.

More significant follow-up discussions have already taken place for Brookfield-based Wentworth Laboratories.

Wentworth President Arthur Evans and a division director, Donald W. Brown, went to Israel in search of an Israeli partner for a joint venture.

In the weeks since Brown returned, Wentworth's prospective partner has visited the Connecticut company to continue discussions.

Wentworth Laboratories makes devices that test computer chips, called probe cards. Currently, the probe cards are made in Brookfield, shipped to an Israeli distributor, A.V.B.A. Engineers Ltd., and sold to three Israeli companies.

Because of the meetings Evans and Brown held in Israel last month, A.V.B.A. Engineers is considering working with Wentworth Laboratories to extend into the manufacturing end of the probe card business.

``We'd support them with know- how, equipment and training, and they would provide the labor force for the assembly,'' Brown said. ``We got through a lot of our preliminary business planning.''

Brown estimates that the market in Israel for such probe cards is greater than $1 million because there is no other manufacturer of the devices there.

Through such a partnership, Wentworth Laboratories also expects to extend its market to Europe and the Far East. A formal agreement is expected by February 1998, Brown said.

A reccuring question observers asked before and after the mission: Why invest in Israel?